News & Updates — Eddie Palmieri

The unsung Jimmy Norman displayed his creativity in many different places during a long career largely underknown to the general public. He was perhaps most identifiable as a lyricist and songwriter, working with Bob Marley, Eddie Palmieri, Johnny Nash, Irma Thomas, Jimi Hendrix, Peter Tosh, Shorty Rogers and others. Born in Nashville, he grew up on the West Coast and started singing and recording with local doo-wop group The Chargers, including Jesse Belvin's "Dandilyon". (It was Belvin who spotted them and recommended them to RCA Victor. He did a bunch of touring as a musician in the '50s and wrote...

Happy birthday to the great vibraphonist Cal Tjader! A gringo who contributed greatly to the development and popularity of Latin-jazz and was an architect of what became known as "Latin rock". He grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and learned to tap-dance and play piano & drum kit at an early age. He played Dixieland as a teenager and formed a group with then-unknown Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond, with Tjader playing kit. He cut his first disk with Fantasy in '52 and soonafter joined George Shearing's group. Tjader and bassist Al McKibbon encouraged Shearing to hire percussionists...

One of the many Jews to contribute immensely to the classic NYC salsa scene, Barry Rogers was a Bronx-bred trombonist who was a first call of many Latin bandleaders, as well as a founding member of the excellent '70s fusion group Dreams (along with Billy Cobham, The Brecker Brothers, John Abercrombie and others). Neighborhood-wise, he came up in mambo & jazz territory. A jazzer at his core, Rogers started playing in Latin bands in the mid '50s. He led the Hugo Dickens group, of which many of the best players of the day (Marty Sheller, Hubert Laws, Bobby Porcelli, Pete...

Alfredo "Chocolate" Armenteros is my favorite of the great Cuban trumpeters. He had a powerhouse sound that could be brash and forceful, or sweet and lyrical. He got his professional start while still in Cuba, cutting his first sides in '49 with René Álvarez. The '50s saw him busy with Arsenio Rodriguez and Beny Moré. He also played with Nat King Cole on the pianists' Cuban sessions. He came to NYC in 1960 and got a lot of work doing sessions and playing in several bands. He played consistently with Eddie Palmieri from the late '60s through the '70s. In...